


Colorless

by pearlmilktea



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Eventual MakoHaru and SouRin, Eye Color Soulmate AU, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Initial RinHaru, M/M, My First Work, Reigisa if you squint, Romance, Some HaruMako, SouRin centric, Soulmates, please critique me if it sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:58:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7544128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlmilktea/pseuds/pearlmilktea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU in which Sousuke hides the true color of his eyes, and Rin's an idiot that falls for the first blue-eyed swimmer he sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colorless

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a Soulmate AU where people can see in the eye colors of their soulmates.  
> If a person confesses to their soulmate and their soulmate confesses back, then both of them can see the full spectrum.

“What color do you want your eyes to be?”

Four-year-old Sousuke stares down at the glass case in front of him. It’s filled with rows and rows of thin lenses - colored contact lenses - more of them than he’s seen in his entire lifetime.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I like my blue eyes. Can’t I keep them like this?”

His mother and his father exchange nervous glances. “We talked about this, remember?” his father says finally, “You need to pick a different color.”

“It’s just so you won’t rush into relationships,” his mother adds. “You can take them off when you’re eighteen.” 

“...I know that.” Huffing, Sousuke takes another look at the grid of lenses. Each pair is supposedly a different color, but they all appear in monochrome to him: black, white, gray. 

Except... except the ten or so pairs on the far right side. Those are red. Red is the only color he can see, after all, because it’s the color of his soulmate’s eyes.

It’s a beautiful color, he decides.

“They all look gray to me,” he says, “except the red ones.” 

His mom just laughs and tries to describe the colors to him once again: green is like the trees and the grass, yellow like the sun when it’s setting. Orange is closest to red; it’s like the flames of a fire or the poppies in his backyard.

In the end, he settles for brown. It’s not a particularly interesting color, but his parents say his hair is brown, too, and he likes things that match. They look neater that way.

Even though he’s only four, he knows how the system works. People don’t see the full spectrum until they confess to their soulmate and their soulmate confesses back. It seems like a whole lot of work - one-sided love is common, but two-sided love is nothing short of a miracle, isn’t it?

Once he gets used to putting the lenses in, though, he barely notices any difference: his eyes look gray to him, just like they always have.

  
* * *  


Sousuke is six and in kindergarten when he first sees him.

The boy’s hair is red. It’s a vibrant shade, and it looks even brighter due to the fact that everything else around him is colorless. The long strands fall neatly over his eyes as he kneels down, writing something in the dirt with a stick, and Sousuke can’t help but stare.

...Oh, wait. It’s rude to stare at strangers, right? The brunet’s attention shifts instead to the kanji letters that have been carved in the dirt. “What are you writing?”

The red-haired boy jumps, then shoots him a brief glare. “You scared me.”

He smiles apologetically. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” The boy is silent for a moment. Then, he says, “I’m writing the order of the strokes in a swimming relay.”

“A relay?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

The redhead frowns, as if this is common knowledge and everyone should know it. “A relay is when four people swim in a team.”

“Why four?”

“Because there are four different strokes. Backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle.”

“Ah, that makes sense! Um... do you do relays?”

“I’ve never tried before, but I want to.”

“So you know how to swim?”

“Yeah.”

Sousuke’s eyes grow wide. “That’s so cool! Can you teach me?”

Surprised, the boy looks up properly for the first time, and Sousuke’s realizes that his eyes are red, just like his hair. They’re actually redder than his hair, if that’s even possible. They’re as red than the cans of Sousuke’s favorite type of soda.

“You want me to teach you how to swim?” The boy asks, and suddenly, Sousuke feels a bit foolish for asking.

“Yeah. Can’t you?”

Slowly, the boy’s face spreads into a smile. “Of course I can!” He grins, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. “I’m Matsuoka Rin, by the way.”

“I’m Yamazaki Sousuke.” 

Rin stays true to his word; later that month, he drags Sousuke to the pool and teaches him to swim. It’s frustrating at first, and Rin yells at him a whole lot, and it takes him forever just to swim across the length of the pool. But Rin’s not going to give up on him that easily, so he tries not to give up on himself, either.

It’s the beginning of everything.

  
* * *  


They’re only eight years old when Rin asks the question: “What’s your soulmate color?”

“Mine’s red,” Sousuke responds, because what’s the point in lying? Rin’s his friend, and they’re just colors.

“Cool! Mine’s blue,” Rin says. Sousuke feels his heart skip a beat: blue.

Blue, like his own eyes.

That means... maybe he and Rin are soulmates.

He wants to point it out, but then he remembers: Rin can’t see his blue eyes in the first place. The contact lenses make them brown. 

Besides, how could he jump to conclusions so early on? The more he thinks about it, the more stupid the idea sounds. Boys aren’t supposed to like boys. The colors match up, but that doesn’t have to mean anything.

“Hey, are you even listening?” Rin asks.

“I... no, I spaced out. Sorry.”

Rin kicks him in the leg.

  
* * *  


They lose their first relay.

Not just by a few seconds, either. Their team ends up placing fifth, which is only two spots away from last.

It isn’t even Sousuke’s fault, because if only the backstroke swimmer hadn’t been so slow, they could have at least gotten third. So, when Rin suggests that they work harder next time, Sousuke rejects his positivity for once.

“There won’t be a next time,” he says.

He can feel his teammates’ heated stares on him, but he doesn’t care. “I don’t like losing because someone else messed up,” he says bitterly, “and I don’t like having to share a win with everyone else.” Because, frankly, that’s what the relay is about, and swimming is supposed to be an individual sport.

And suddenly, Rin is grabbing the goggles hanging around Sousuke’s neck and twisting them in a choke hold, and he’s yelling at him so loudly that the coaches have to come by and tell him to stop.

It’s the first real fight they have. It’s the first time Sousuke sees Rin’s eyes turn cold like that.

  
* * *  


Rin forgives him a week later, and things mostly go back to normal. Whenever the topic of relays is brought up, though, the tension between them still hangs heavy in the air.

  
* * *  


It’s a summer afternoon, and the sun hangs directly overhead, making the sidewalks sizzle. The air is stagnant and burning as they race over to the shop next to their house.

They hover together over the popsicle stand, both taking comfort in the cold air that radiates from it. “One… two…”

They both reach down and grab hold of the exact same popsicle: a soda-flavored ice pop in red wrapping. It isn’t even the first time that this has happened. Their eyes lock briefly, and it’s an unspoken agreement that there is only one solution to this problem:

…

Rin wins at rock, paper, scissors. He always wins.

Sousuke complains about this, and Rin brags a bit too much about how refreshing his popsicle tastes. Sousuke’s ice cream doesn’t taste nearly as good as a soda popsicle, but in the end, he’s content, anyways. He likes seeing Rin smile.

  
* * *  


They agree to have a race for butterfly. It’s a one-hundred meter sprint, and the loser has to do whatever the winner wants.

Sousuke wins. 

And, yet, before he has the chance to decide what he wants, they graduate from elementary school, and suddenly Rin’s leaving for Australia to study abroad.

Sousuke really wants to be selfish for once in his life. Maybe if he uses his ‘winner’s promise’ on this, he can somehow persuade Rin not to leave. Even if they’re rivals. Even if they aren’t soulmates.

Because all he wants, all he’s ever wanted is for Rin to stay. 

But it’s too selfish, right? This is Rin’s dream, and Sousuke is just another side character in his story. He has no right to stop Rin from writing his own future.

So,

Sousuke

smiles.

And he watches Rin leave.

And he hopes that last smile will be enough to last him a year.

  
* * *  


Rin doesn’t come back.

He stops calling. His letters stop coming.

Even when he’s returns to Japan, he goes to a different middle school. Sousuke wants to follow - to transfer - anything to be with Rin. But they’re rivals, and so it’s only natural for them to be apart, right?

He sits in the classroom alone. He studies alone. He trains alone.

Swimming is an individual sport, he tells himself. Friends will only distract him; having fun is no different from slacking off. If Rin someday stands on an international stage, he wants to do it, too, and he’s not going to achieve that if he doesn't push himself to his limits.

Sometimes, he sees brief glimpses of red: the postage stamps on a letter, the last few minutes in a sunset, the occasional robin that perches itself on the tree by his bedroom window. They all seem dull to him; nothing comes close to the vibrancy that he’d once been faced with every day.

At the end of the day, Sousuke tells himself that there really isn’t a difference. When he hits the water, he’s alone. It’s always been like that.

He doesn’t know why he isn’t used to it by now.

  
* * *  


It starts as a small, lingering pain in his right shoulder. Then it becomes an annoyance. Then it starts affecting his swimming. By the time he withdraws, it’s too late.

He goes through physical therapy, but his shoulder breaks down on him, again and again and again. And suddenly, his peers start surpassing him, and the international stage that was once right in front of him is gone, spiraling just out of his reach.

He can’t swim.

If he can’t swim, what use is he?

In the end, he gives up. He lets the dream go, just like how he’d let Rin go back then. A part of him knows that Rin wouldn’t have been happy about his decision to quit.

But then again, Rin probably doesn’t even remember him, anyways.

  
* * *  


Seeing Rin in pain during regionals crushes him.

But seeing Rin swim the relay with Haruka and the others hurts him, too.

Because Rin comes to life in a way that Sousuke has never seen before, and even though Sousuke knows he should be happy for Rin, he can’t ignore the deeper, venomous thoughts that bury themselves in his mind.

Rin’s has his own life, now. He has friends and a relay team. He’s perfectly fine by himself.

He doesn’t need Sousuke anymore.

  
* * *  


It’s been five years after Rin’s departure. Rin’s grown taller; he’s not as tall as Sousuke is, of course, but his shoulders have gotten broader, and his side bangs are now long enough to frame his face. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, though, it must be his eyes; they’re still just as breathtaking as Sousuke remembers them.

Rin looks Sousuke over carefully. “Why are you here?” despite his best efforts, his question comes out sounding curious instead of accusatory.

Sousuke merely smiles. “I have my reasons.”

Red eyes narrow. “Stop fooling around and tell me.”

“I wanted to enjoy my last year of high school in my home town,” Sousuke admits, “since I already decided what I wanted to do with my future.” It’s not exactly a lie.

Rin’s eyes grow wide, and he hovers over Sousuke with a certain degree of nervousness. “You aren’t going to quit swimming, are you?”

And Sousuke didn’t plan to lie to Rin. He really didn’t. But those red eyes are so wide, and if he tells the truth, he knows that Rin will cry. He doesn’t want to be the cause of Rin’s sadness, especially not on their reunion of five years. 

“I got scouted,” Sousuke lies finally, and Rin’s look of betrayal shifts to one of admiration. Sousuke knows that he’ll have to find out the truth eventually, but it’s fine, because Rin’s here now, and that’s enough.

  
* * *  


It’s eleven at night, and they stand together outside of the school dormitory. It’s a clear night, and the stars are suspended above them, mirroring the thousands of skyscrapers in the city.

That’s when Sousuke decides to bring it up: “Are you really serious about your dream?”

Rin scoffs, because the answer is obvious to both of them. “Of course.”

Sousuke frowns, his gaze directed listlessly at the sky. “If you really want to compete on an international level, you can’t keep going on about friends and relays. You should spend your time training instead.”

Rin stops walking and turns to face him. His face is lit by the harsh glow of an overhead streetlight, but even so, Sousuke can’t quite identify the expression it displays. “My dream is important to me, but so are my friends. It’s thanks to them that I’ve been able to come this far.”

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Sousuke says sternly. “Everything you’ve achieved comes from training hard. Your friends have nothing to do with your success.”

“What would you know?” Rin grabs the collar of Sousuke’s shirt, and in his eyes are fire; the same fire that Sousuke remembers seeing so many years ago. “It was my friends who pulled me out of the darkness; it was they who cheered me on. And what about you? You weren’t even there.”

His tone is bitter and resigned; nothing like the warm, soft voice that Sousuke remembers. “How dare you say that the people that I swim with are a waste of time? You don’t even know them. You don’t even know me.” 

And Sousuke wants to yell back, he really does, but his mouth doesn’t move, so he simply stands there, frozen.

“I’m not a child anymore,” Rin’s grip on Sousuke’s shirt lightens and his arm drops limply to his side, his fingers still clenched into a fist. “I found a dream. I found a soulmate. What about you?”

And then it clicks: Haru. Haru is the one who Rin swims for. He’s always been the one, because Haru is Rin’s soulmate. All these years, Sousuke has been chasing the shadow of a person that no longer exists. But all of that is over now.

He’s too late.

**Author's Note:**

> My writing is very rusty. Descriptions are hard. This took three drafts of rewriting. Please forgive any cringeworthy mistakes. D:  
> I have the whole story planned out, and I swear that the rest isn't so canon-heavy.
> 
> Updates every 2 weeks! Critiques and comments make me happy. :)


End file.
